One thing that I like about Android is that developers can choose to minimally style buttons and similar UI elements and these differences will be applied to whatever the base device theme is.
This means that users will get a consistent user experience throughout various applications and won't have to run around trying to figure out what's a button and what's a text input.
Sadly, this project essentially destroys all of that work and something tells me it won't work correctly on the most customized devices (like the old Motorola RAZR running 2.3 for example).
Nice idea but I don't think it makes much sense in it's current state.
What's the logic here? If you're cross platform, most people are most likely not going to be using your app on more than one platform, so there's little to be gained from a "consistent experience across platforms" angle. It's rare that the same person or team is doing both iOS and Android development, and the languages and layout methods are different anyway, so there's little to be gained on the development side in terms of reuse. Maybe it makes sense if you only have one "mobile PM" who handles both, but this seems shortsighted considering how quickly the platforms change and, especially on Android, how many devices and carrier customized builds you need to test on.
I suppose it makes sense from a branding perspective, but any designer worth their weight should be able to come up with a distinctive branded experience that doesn't revamp the entire, default, builtin experience on the device.
I can see where he's coming from, my company is actually at fault on this exact point.
The initial target was iOS and then clients requested Android compatibility as well. Designs for iOS are completed and implemented and are then re-used for Android. The excuse is 'consistent user experience' but really they just don't want to do the same job twice for a platform that generally has less usage and provides less profit (in our case at least).
I took matters into my own hands and there are noticeable differences between the two applications. There was of course some backlash (I flat out refused to put a 'back' button on the action bar for example or move the sliding menu to the right side) but in general the look and feel is consistent across the two platforms.
That doesn't (and won't) stop me from using native controls such as text inputs and dialogs that users on Android are quite familiar with.
In case someone has no clue what the hell I'm talking about I'd be happy to share some screenshots via pm.
Designs for iOS are completed and implemented and are then re-used for Android. The excuse is 'consistent user experience' but really they just don't want to do the same job twice
Yeah, this is a sign of a bad PM, who doesn't understand the market or mobile ecosystem enough to realize that the targets are completely different.
On the other hand, if the interface was designed to be completely unique and skirted all the specifics of the deployment platform, in an attempt to be branded or for reuse of designs, that's reasonable. Often, however, it is obvious that the design was optimized for another platform than the one you're using it on. "Custom back button" on Android, indeed.
Why would one implement this instead of using Android's builtin widgets? Android apps have always felt better to me when they use the UI recommended in the Android style guide.
Because the built-in resources are very Google-brand looking. Big apps have their own style. They'll follow UI norms, but don't need to look like Google made the app.
Agreed. We already have icon placement in TextEdit controls via the drawableLeft, etc. attributes. And if your app doesn't have a theme font of some sort you are better off using the Roboto system one so you don't look strange for no reason.
I guess the only real use is for the icon font, but people were doing that already and it's best practice to generate one with just the symbols you need.
I don't think Android Bootstrap has anything to do with HTML5. It's a set of themes for native Android apps duplicating the style of Twitter Bootstrap.
I really can't differentiate between Disabled buttons and Rounded buttons. There would also be very little differentiation between the a basic button with no icon (because there isn't a good icon for everything) and the text input. Android design guidelines and 'language' is very different, and people expect the apps the buttosn to have some depth and clarity because of it. I, personally, would hate to have any of the apps that I use move to this style.
Responsive frameworks like Bootstrap are already designed to work across desktops and mobile devices including Android, so there would be less of a motivation to make it specifically for Android. This is a native app boilerplate that creates the look and feel of Bootstrap.
This means that users will get a consistent user experience throughout various applications and won't have to run around trying to figure out what's a button and what's a text input.
Sadly, this project essentially destroys all of that work and something tells me it won't work correctly on the most customized devices (like the old Motorola RAZR running 2.3 for example).
Nice idea but I don't think it makes much sense in it's current state.